


so let the words slip out of your mouth

by eponnia



Series: i was made for loving you [2]
Category: BURROUGHS Edgar Rice - Works, Tarzan of the Apes & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
Genre: 1880s, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, POV Female Character, Period-Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Soulmate Tattoos, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 08:24:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponnia/pseuds/eponnia
Summary: Being different shouldn't condemn him to a madhouse, and just because society might give up on him too soon doesn't mean she is going to.





	so let the words slip out of your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "The Words" by Christina Perri.

* * *

_All of the lights land on you_

_The rest of the world fades from view_

_And all of the love I see_

_Please, please say you feel it too_

* * *

The man does not fully wake by the next morning.

Jane is of course glad he even survived the night, but she had hoped she would be able to at least talk with her soulmate after his surgery. But he develops an infection even though Charles Harris, the Welsh doctor working in the next village over, did all he could. In his fever, the man, named John Clayton III according to the golden letters on her skin, makes odds noises where others would talk through an illness; he grunts and huffs, but says no discernable words.

She sits by John's bedside as the days stretch on, faithfully wiping his brow with a damp handkerchief, and wonders if there is a purpose to the sounds he makes. Linguist's daughter that she is, Jane notices he repeats certain tones to his hisses and growls, but he is not awake enough to answer the multitude of questions she has. His fever refuses to break, and there seems to be no improvement to his condition.

But then one day over a week later, she leaves his room to retrieve a fresh handkerchief. A hot summer breeze blows through the house, and she hikes up the skirt her old dress and ties the fabric in a knot at her hip. She can almost hear Cora screeching in her ear about propriety, and given that Jane is spending time with a formerly naked man, however unconscious, she keeps the hem below her knees.

But when she walks back into the room, he is finally awake.

His gaze drifts from the knot in her skirt to her face as she carefully approaches the bed; he might be her soulmate, but he also tried to bite Muviro and was wandering in the jungle without clothes on. Sweat still beads his forehead, and so she slowly brings the damp handkerchief to his face.

He turns his head when the cloth touches his skin.

"It is alright," she says softly. "You are safe now. How are you feeling?"

He blinks at her.

"The injuries the ape gave you were rather severe, but your waking must be a sign that at least your fever has broken."

His expression is as blank as the young children's faces in the village when she speaks too quickly in English.

"Can you understand me?" she asks, but there is no sign that he does.

"My name is Jane," she says, switching to Bantu in the silence that follows. "And I believe I already know your name, John. If it is not too forward of me to say, you and I are soulmates."

He still looks confused, so she holds out her wrist so he can see his own name in gold. He briefly looks at the letters before meeting her gaze, brow furrowed as she points to his own wrist. She notices his fingers are still as oddly curled as the day they met, callouses the size she's never seen before on his knuckles, and it is as if he has never unbent his fingers.

"You see?" She stretches her arm to hold out her wrist beside his, matching gold on their skin. "Soulmates."

He huffs a few times, surprisingly her by grunting, and she wonders if he has an injury of some kind to keep him from speaking. But there seems to be no strain to his voice, no roughness or discomfort to indicate any damage to his vocal chords. "I am going to fetch the doctor," she says in English, stepping away from the bed. "He will want to know you are awake."

The man blows odd, urgent puffs of air, an alarmed look in his eyes, and when he tries to raise himself up on an elbow, she quickly guides him back down.

"I will be away only a few minutes," she assures him, but he looks even more panicked. Only when she holds up a hand does he stop moving. "Stay here."

But when Jane does find the physician, John is collapsed on the floor as if he had tried to get up but could not continue due to his injuries. He resists their help to return to the bed, quieting only when Jane is in his line of vision. He is exhausted by the time he is laid down on the mattress, the movement far too much strain on his still-healing body, and he actually growls at Dr. Harris when the Welshman tries to lift his bandages.

"Do not worry," Jane says, now quite sure that John can't understand her, but she just can't stand there and do nothing. "The doctor is only trying to help."

She keeps talking to John as Dr. Harris continues his examination, rambling about anything that might calm this man who is by far the strangest person she has ever met. But even with all of his oddities, she finds she is not put off by his behavior, and instead her desire to help is increased tenfold.

* * *

As the weeks pass, she doesn’t tell anyone else of her suspicions that he can't speak any language, let alone English.

If she did, they might write him off as soft in the head and ship him off to an institution in Europe without a second thought. If the only problem is that he speaks a tongue she doesn't know, that is no reason to lock him away in an asylum for the rest of his life. And he does not seem slow to her; he has an intelligent face and inquisitive, piercing eyes that convince her he is nowhere near as simple as another might assume.

Being different shouldn't condemn him to a madhouse, and just because society might give up on him too soon doesn't mean she is going to.

She pours over her father's books even though she has read them all before, desperate for some information she had forgotten that could help this John. The thing that confuses her most is that he does not respond to the name on her wrist.

Is he not her soulmate? Is she not his? Did their marks malfunction? _Can_ soulmate marks malfunction? But after a few sleepless nights wrestling with questions, she puts thoughts of names and soulmates and destiny out of her mind, and focuses on teaching him how to be a person.

He eats his meals unlike anyone she has ever seen, completely ignoring the utensils she set on his tray to pick up the food with his bare hands and gnaw at it. After seeing him eat this way the first time when he is recovered enough to move on from her giving him broth with a spoon, she makes an effort to only give him meals when it is only the two of them in the room. There is no need to alarm others who would show no tolerance to his differences.

She tries speaking languages she is less familiar with, like Latin, and stumbles over the ones she barely knows like Hebrew or Greek, but he does not recognize any. Nothing seems to work, and so, budding teacher that she is, she focuses on finding something that does. He has a habit of huffing, and so she tries to discern what his noises mean. He grunts when he is alarmed or upset, blowing puffs of air when he is more content; but when she tries to mimic him, he only gives her a confused look. Either she is pronouncing the noises wrong, or it is not a language at all.

But late one evening, she is going through a book by candlelight, tired out of her mind from late nights and frustrating days with no progress. The words on the page blur in her exhaustion, and her mind wanders. Jane muses on the fact that some of his grunts sound like the trained monkeys at a P. T. Barnum circus she went to when she was seven, having to leave the performance early because she cried at the treatment of the animals–

She sits bolt upright, nearly knocking over the candle with her book.

The Mangani that John had fought to protect her had not seemed to have much of a connection with him, but the smaller ape on the edge of the jungle certainly did as John was brought to the village. There were sensationalized tales of feral children being raised by animals, but she had never known when to believe the stories, convinced at least most of them were made up to sell papers.

But what if some of them were true?

She immediately goes to John's room, moving as quietly as she can through the house as to not wake her father. Archimedes has been working with the villagers while she has focused on John, and she has not told even her father of her work with the patient. But she's not going to start now when she is potentially so close to a breakthrough.

John wakes when she opens his door, her candle dimly illuminating his room, and she smiles as she carefully closes the door behind her. "I am sorry to wake you," she apologizes in English, voice low. It is still obvious he doesn't know what she's saying, but talking in any language feels better than standing there in silence. "But we cannot discuss this while there are others around."

Her excitement falters when she realizes how unseemly this must look. Cora would faint if she knew her niece was spending so much time with a man she barely knows, let alone at night. But John, or whoever he is, has never once made any untoward advances to her. Jane's reputation is practically ruined anyway, and she can't stand by and do nothing. If she was a proper lady, she wouldn't even think about doing this.

But she's not a proper lady, and no one else will help him.

She stands by his bed and struggles to replicate the sound the Mangani ape made on the edge of the jungle, feeling faintly ridiculous. But he looks up sharply at her when she makes her attempt, and for the first time, there is understanding in his gaze. She tries again, and then he repeats the noises back to her, blue eyes lighting up.

She nearly cries in relief after weeks of no progress, but then she hears her father walking down the hall, and she covers John's mouth with her hand when he huffs at her. She realizes belatedly that he could bite her, given that he tried to sink his teeth into others, but he does not move.

She hears her father leave the house, and a few moments later the latrine door a few yards away opens and closes, and she pulls her hand away from John's face. She realizes that this is the most physical contact she has ever had with him, and she tries not to turn red. He is her soulmate, after all.

"We will try again tomorrow," she whispers, stepping away from the bed, and he reaches out to catch her wrist.

"My father cannot see me in here with you," she explains as he gives her a look that clearly means he wants her to stay. "I will be back in the morning," she adds under her breath, and he releases her wrist, watching her as she leaves.

She makes it back to her room just in time, listening to her father's footsteps through the house as she blows out the candle, but nearly being caught is not the only reason her heart is pounding.

* * *

The moment she hears her father open the front door the next morning, she bolts out of her room.

John is awake when she comes into his room, standing at the window and watching the sunrise. As the early morning light brightens the space, her stomach does an odd flip when seeing him shirtless even with bandages around his torso, but thankfully he's still wearing trousers.

"You should sit down," she suggests. He turns at her voice, which is progress in of itself, because it means he knows she is trying to communicate specifically with him. "You are not fully healed."

She sits down on the edge of the bed, gesturing for her to join him, and he follows. But then he climbs up onto the mattress, crouching on it with his arms extended forward for balance, and his hands curl into fists against the sheets, looking almost like…

Well, a gorilla.

"If that is what is most comfortable for you," she says, and draws a breath.

The problem with attempting to speak what she is seriously considering to be ape is that she has no idea what even she herself is saying. She makes noises that she hopes sounds like a monkey, but she has no book or phonetic guide to help her. John seems to understand some of what she says, but is confused by others, and what she thought could be headway comes to a standstill. She sighs and buries her face in her hands, wondering if she will ever be able to truly help him.

And then she feels John's hands in her hair.

He shifts through the golden strands, gently exposing her scalp in one place before moving on to carefully pull back more of her hair, and she realizes he is grooming her. She has seen monkeys do this to each other before, and if this is a sign of care, she is not about to stop it.

But her hair is clean, and he finds nothing to pick out as he would with a Mangani. He pulls his hands back, and she looks up at him. "Thank you," she says sincerely, because if her theory is correct, his actions mean he is looking out for her wellbeing. And that means, despite everything, he trusts her.

He responds by lowering his own head, and she awkwardly starts to look through his hair. It had taken an eternity to clean it once he had been brought in, but now she focuses on looking for any head injuries the doctor might have missed when John's hair was so matted. But there are none, and when she removes her hands from his head, he looks up. His eyes are still as captivating as the day they met.

"My name is Jane," she says after a moment, putting a hand on her chest. "Jane." He blinks at her. "Jane."

He looks at her hand, and then her heart nearly stops when he repeats, "Jane."

Tears spring to her eyes at the first human word he has spoken in a month. "Yes, Jane. Good."

"Jane," he says again.

"Good. I am Jane."

"I am Jane," he parrots back, and she shakes her head even as her heart leaps into her throat at the first human sentence he has ever strung together.

"No, I am Jane." She points at him. "You are–"

"Tarzan."

Jane can't breathe.

She had intended to say the name on her wrist, but the word Tarzan clearly means something to him. It is not one of his noises that she now considers an animal language she simply doesn't know yet; if dogs and cats can be somewhat understood by humans, so can a monkey and a man who appears to speak ape. But Tarzan seems almost like… a name.

"Tarzan?"

His eyes light up. "Tarzan." He points to himself and then to her. "Jane."

"Jane," she repeats, and points to him. "Tarzan."

He huffs, seemingly in approval. "Tarzan."

The words on her wrist do not spell that name, but in this moment, she doesn't care.


End file.
